Ram, Expanded: Seven Firsts
by Kesomon
Summary: Seven moments in Ram's captive life. Starts cheerful, but Readers, Heed The Rating. Chapters 5 and onward feature swearing, graphic violence, torture, hurt/comfort and angst. Bring tissues.
1. Chapter 1

**Seven Firsts  
**_Part of the Ram, Expanded series_  
_Fandom: Tron  
Beta: Shirozora, ExpositionFairy, tanks4thememory, infiniteviking_

Summary: Seven moments in Ram's captive life.

Warnings: Minor violence in this chapter. (Graphic violence, graphic torture and minor character death in later segments. Lots of emotional Ram-whump and hurt/comfort schmoop that can be read as either platonic or shippy. Bring tissues.)

_A/N: Heed the warnings for this fic. The first few chapters are fine and cheerful (and short), but it takes a drastic turn downward fairly quickly. Chapter-appropriate warnings will be posted at the start of each chapter._

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

While he would never admit it out loud, and certainly not to Tron, Ram was actually a little happy that the memory guards had arrested the security monitor when they had. Of course, he immediately felt guilty for feeling that way, but that didn't change the fact that life with Tron in the compound was far more bearable.

The lessons Tron began teaching him were a respite from the crippling monotony of the pit complex. The actuary watched and listened, absorbing it all like data-growth soaked up electrostatic. The insurance calculator in him welcomed the opportunity to multitask his functions and feel productive; everything else…well, now that he was aware of it, there was so much to _experience_ here; things that he'd never seen or done before. Good or bad, Ram couldn't help but keep track.

The first time the Reds came to summon Tron to the Games, they made several fatal mistakes.

For instance: trying to corral him in an open area.

When the compound force field deactivated and the guards filed in, energy lances at the ready, Tron shrank back from them, taking full advantage of the fact he had plenty of space to move. If Ram hadn't seen the gleam in his eyes, he might've thought it was a retreat; as it was, the guards had no choice but to be lured into the trap.

There was a beautiful and deadly grace to the way Tron wielded his disk. Ram had never seen him in action on the gaming grid, as Disk Wars were a one-program event, but Tron had demonstrated his skills in practice during downtime. He moved like a predator, smooth motions that were at once acrobatic and yet expended no further energy than was necessary.

With an arcing shot, he derezzed two of the Memory Guards before they could react and sliced another's staff into a shower of bright pixels before the remaining guards wrestled him to the ground and jabbed an energy lance into his back.

Even with his circuits bruised and cracked, the feral grin on his face as they hauled him to his feet and march him out was fierce and defiant. Ram decided he fell in love with him a little, at that moment.

"You have got to teach me that move," he begged later, when Tron had been returned battered and exhausted but still kicking. "How did you get your disk to arc like that? I've only ever managed to throw it straight and duck for cover."

Tron grinned and bent his head conspiratorially. "The trick is in the wrist, and calculating the angles."

Ram smirked back. "Calculation is my middle function. Show me what you got."


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings: Minor violence in this chapter.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

To the surprise of both programs, Ram picked up new moves like he was coded for it.

Not to say there weren't a few fumbles in the beginning, moments when insecurity overrode instinct and his own disk edge bit at his gloves on a bad catch. Ram just laughed it off, sucking on his injured fingers to lessen the sting as he waved off Tron's concerned queries.

"I had worse during Sark's 'standard sub-standard' training drills," he said, falling back into defence-form one, a ready state from which he could move to block or attack, depending on what his opponent chose to do. "Stop fretting and go again. I think I've got it figured out."

And he would. Ram found he rarely needed more than a few downtimes of practice to get a handle on whatever new trick Tron pulled from his databanks. He wasn't as agile as Tron, or as manoeuvrable, but he had a knack for disk control and a habit of pulling tricks and bluffs.

Tron's disk, safely deactivated, came whirring across the small area they'd chosen as a practice ring: a corner of the compound well away from the other conscripts and within safe distance of the gates. Ram deflected it, then put a backhanded spin on his own and sent it flying in an easy arc. Tron ducked and shot him a look, one that clearly stated his opinion of Ram resorting to such simple throws.

Ram just smirked back at him, eyes tracking his disk as it spun, bounced off a support strut, ricocheted off the wall, and came flying back towards its owner.

The smirk puzzled Tron, right up until Ram's disk smacked him upside the head on its return trip.

The actuary fell into a fit of helpless giggles at Tron's dumbfounded expression. The security program actually flinched at the contact and fumbled Ram's disk, catching it before it could hit the ground.

"Oh Users, _your face_!" Ram cackled, bouncing gleefully on his toes. "I got you good."

"You are entirely too clever for an insurance calculator," Tron groused in good nature as he tossed the disk back. "I should've seen that coming."

"It's what I do best," Ram boasted, still chuckling as he caught the disk and gave it a twirl between his hands. "Even if I'm only half an actuary, I can still compute vectors with the best of them."

At that, Tron fixed him with a puzzled frown. "What do you mean you're only half an actuary?" Ram winced at his slip of the tongue.

Friend or not, Tron was still a security program. And Ram had a small set of logic circuits running calculations that the underlying directives R_Kleinberg7 had half-compiled into his functions – the ones that said, '_do everything possible to trick, evade, and baffle the target security program into making a mistake_' – well, he had a good bet that Tron was probably the very program he had been tasked to test.

At least, that would've been the case, if the recompile had ever been completed. Since it hadn't…

"You'll laugh," he warned, running the edge of his disk between his fingers. "Or crash, probably."

Tron sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. "I doubt it's anything that bad, Ram. So you're only half an actuarial program; no big deal. What's the other half? Statistics? Bit-herder? No, wait, I know: you worked in recycling." The last was said with a teasing smirk.

"Er, not exactly." Ram laughed sheepishly, grinning. "I was…unauthorised system security testing and data reallocation. I was recompiling new functions and directives when I got nabbed. Hence…only half."

The first time Ram admitted to Tron that he had hacker code hiding under his actuarial signature was also the first time Ram saw Tron completely speechless, and he couldn't stop laughing for nanocycles.


	3. Chapter 3

Warnings: None, unless you count over-excessive tooth-rotting sweetness.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

"What do you think they're like?"

"Who?"

"The Users. Our users, specifically; what do you think they're like?"

Tron lowered his disk, the readout he had been studying flickering off, and looked at Ram. "What brings this up?"

The smaller program was sprawled next to Tron on his stomach, chin propped up on his hand, using a piece of broken code shaped into a stylus to scratch binary into the compound floor. Ram shrugged, poking at the ones and zeros etched into the silicon. It was just gibberish, so far. Maybe he'd turn it into a dirty limerick…something about Sark and his helmet of overcompensation, perhaps.

"Just wandering subroutines."

Tron took that as dismissal of the question, apparently, for he merely frowned slightly and returned to his disk. Ram rolled his eyes, bending his legs up at the knee and letting his feet sway precariously side to side.

"I think mine must be kinda sneaky."

Tron sighed and lowered his disk again. Ram smirked; success!

"I'm almost afraid to ask why," his friend remarked, looking fondly exasperated.

The actuary grinned. "Well, you gotta admit, Tron, hiding a hacker behind a legitimate profession is pretty devious." At that, Tron huffed, amusement poorly hidden. Ram chuckled and kicked his legs idly. "I bet he's nice, though. He only uses his powers of evil for good."

"I'm fairly sure that's an oxymoron," his companion noted. Ram shook his head.

"R_Kleinberg7 could do a lot of damage if he wrote programs maliciously. But he's loyal to his friends, and so he makes sure to only write programs that do good things, even if they have to hack a few memory banks to do it." Ram's smile faded, turning wistful. "And he's loyal to the programs he writes. He's probably out there right now, worrying himself sick and plotting an ingenious plan to exploit the backdoors to the system and break us out."

Tron didn't say anything, but he did move his hand from his leg. Ram took the invitation and rolled over, scooting himself up to rest his head against the other program's leg. Tron dropped his hand to rest in the actuary's hair.

"You should really keep your helmet on," he muttered, casting a glance to where Ram had left the offending article of armour, upturned next to the binary prose.

Ram hummed dismissively, staring at the ceiling. "I'm sick of wearing it all the time. It bugs the bits out of me." He sighed happily as fingers carded through his curls. The touch to the circuits under his hair was soothing. "That feels nice."

Tron smiled faintly down at him, and let silence pass between them for nanocycles.

When next he spoke, it was the first time he'd ever mentioned his User by name.

"My User…" he said after a while, breaking the silence with the rough timbre of his voice and drawing Ram from the light doze he'd fallen prey to. "My User is Alan-One. He's strong, and steadfast, but also careful and meticulous. Nothing he ever compiled for me had bugs in it; he wouldn't dare upload something that could cause harm. He never lets anyone push him around, and he's fiercely protective of his friends. I bet he's up there right alongside R_Kleinberg7."

"He sounds like a good User." Ram opened his eyes to look up at Tron. "He has to be, to write you."

Tron smiled at that. "Like User, like program?" He ruffled Ram's hair lightly. "R_Kleinberg7 didn't do too shabby a job with you either."

Ram's circuits flashed an embarrassed pink and he knocked the hand away with a snort, drawing an echoing laugh from the security monitor. A nanocycle later Tron's fingers returned to rest in his curls.

"Tron?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think they're friends, like we are?"

"…Most definitely."

"Good."


	4. Chapter 4

Warnings: minor violence and Sark being an ass. This is the last 'happy' chapter, folks; enjoy it while you can.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

The first time Ram rode a lightcycle was the most exhilarating and utterly terrifying 15 nanocycles of his existence. Frankly, he was amazed he even lasted that long before his bike took a wrong turn and he went flying in a shower of broken bike code across the practice grid.

Well, what did they expect from an actuarial program, honestly?

Until the Games, Ram had never even seen a lightcycle up close. There wasn't a lot of need for active game grids in the LuxStar Insurance sectors, after all. Fortunately, it didn't take Ram too long to learn how to apply his insurance functions towards calculating the projected actions and reactions of his opponents.

The one-on-one matches suddenly became almost painfully short.

And Ram gained notice from Sark.

"Personally, I would keep you running single opponents into the ground until your processors shorted out," the command program sneered. Ram tried not to glower from where he was kneeling, and surreptitiously dabbed the corner of his mouth with his wrist, checking for energy bleeds. There weren't any; surprising, given the strength of Sark's backhand. His circuits still stung.

Sark was still pontificating. "The MCP, however, has determined that we cannot have any single program surviving to gain more experience than the rest. You're all meant to die playing. From now on you will report to the team grids."

"Gee golly, I'm flattered by your confidence in me," Ram remarked sarcastically. He'd really been hanging around Tron too long if even Sark was inspiring sarcasm, rather than nervous fear.

Sark only smiled. "Don't delude yourself, program. I look forward to wiping that smirk off your face – permanently."

Team play, Ram soon discovered, was both easier and vastly more difficult.

Easier, because instead of having to keep track of the locations of his opponents on his own, he had teammates to spot trouble, if they weren't in trouble themselves. If he was in a bind, he could run and evade, coordinating with another player to take out his pursuer.

It was difficult as well, because those same team members he was partnered with were an extra variable to input into his strategy calculations. He would chase after an enemy, only to have to swerve out of the way of a jet wall from one of his own teammates. And most of those teammates were utterly green. Sure, they had experience, like him, in besting one-on-one opponents, but absolutely none where team play was concerned.

To be fair, neither did he, but the point still stood. Team matches were often sabotaged by missteps until Ram was suddenly the only one left, speeding off in pursuit or escape from multiple enemies.

This time, however, was different. He had a partner he'd worked with, and strategized with, and practiced disk-wars moves with so much that even on the lightcycle grid, each had an intimate understanding of how the other functioned in-game.

His partner was Tron.

~_Maze is ready!_~ Ram sent over the com in binary, risking a glance over his shoulder at the complex pattern his jet wall had laid out as he zigzagged around the track. An _/affirmative_ pinged back, and Tron's orange lightcycle shot ahead of the blue bike he'd been pursuing, boxing him in and forcing the rider into Ram's maze.

It was a matter of picocycles before the splash of blue pixels heralded the end of the match, and Ram did a victory lap on his lightcycle before pulling in beside Tron and deactivating it. The security program was studying him. Ram ignored the calculating stare.

The first time they had partnered up, Tron had stared at him like that after the match. When Ram had asked why, the answer had surprised him.

"Your lightcycle circuits were red, not orange," Tron had said, frowning at him. Ram had blinked.

"Really?" He'd never noticed before. Tron's stare had turned shrewd. Ram had recognised it as the look he often gave new conscripts in the compound – scanning them, determining their threat levels. He'd held up his hands. "Hey, this is me, remember? I had no idea. No one else ever mentioned it, and it's hard to examine your own circuit colour when you're dodging jet walls."

Tron had looked dubious, and took to studying him after every match in the few nanocycles they had to rest before the guards arrived to escort them away.

This time, he only stared for a few moments before speaking up. "I think I've figured it out."

Ram had to pause for a moment before he figured out what Tron was talking about. "What, the lightcycle colour thing?"

Tron nodded.

"All right! Lay it on me."

It was not the first time Ram had made Tron tilt his head like a puzzled bit, and fought to keep from grinning at it. It was just too fun to befuddle him, and to rile Sark, with some of the User-idioms he'd picked up in insurance.

Tron was learning how to decipher them quickly; he didn't even ask for clarification this time.

"It's your core code." At Ram's puzzled look, he elaborated, "If you were completely actuarial, your bike would be orange, like mine. I imagine if you were completely a hacker, it would be a different colour entirely, since if you were completely a hacker I doubt you would've been written in this system. But you're both, and neither, and you were written in this system. The duality of the incomplete recompile scrambles the lightcycle's data streams, so it defaults to the system's controlling OS colours. And since the MCP's primary colour is red…"

"Then my lightcycle rezzes red, not orange." Ram thought for a moment, then choked and stifled a snicker with his hand, grinning. "It's gotta be serendipity."

Tron looked confused again. "I don't follow."

Ram had to fight to keep from laughing as he explained, "I'm a hacker, with a legitimate function, and a glitch in my code that lets me blend in to whatever system I enter just by rezzing up a lightcycle."

Tron's face as the security program calculated the possibilities this entailed was the picture of offended horror, and Ram lost his battle with humour, cackling madly.


	5. Chapter 5

Warnings: OC death, graphic descriptions of a lightcycle crash, Ram being more badass with two disks than Rinzler, and FEELS. SO MANY FEELS.

A/N: The system repair program Soli is named for the Dr. Solomon Antivirus Toolkit, which was possibly the first antivirus program to exist in working capacity in the 80's. 8D The More You Know!

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

He should've known the fun wouldn't last.

The last opponent of the match was on Tron's tail, the noses of their cycles battling for supremacy as they sped towards the wall in a life-or-death game of chicken. They had a strategy for this scenario; Ram turned his cycle on an intercept course. As the blue bike peeled off and shot right, and Tron did the same to the left, Ram brought his lightcycle in and closed the escape route. Their opponent's bike processor screamed as he tried to pull it into a second turn far too quickly, and the vehicle went skidding out from underneath him, slamming into Ram's jet wall.

Ram whooped in glee as he circled around and rode towards Tron, who had derezzed his cycle and was looking in his direction. No, he was looking past Ram, at the spot where the last blue bike had derezzed. Ram pulled up and deactivated his cycle, smiling at the security program.

"Hey, we won; what's with the face?"

Tron didn't answer immediately, an intense frown furrowing his eyebrows.

"Something's not right," he finally growled, and began jogging across the game grid.

Ram stared after him, completely confused. Confusion turned to surprise when he realised that there was a program sprawled on the grid floor. The last blue rider hadn't derezzed with his bike. While the game was technically programmed to declare a winner when all enemy bikes were destroyed, no one had ever survived a crash before; at least, not while Ram was playing.

Ram bit his lip, then made his choice and jogged after Tron. "Hey, is he okay?"

The security program was kneeling beside the other when he caught up, and at Ram's query, Tron's head snapped up. "Ram, back."

Ram stumbled to a halt and frowned. "But–" He stepped closer.

Tron immediately rose and moved to intercept him. "You don't want to see this, Ram. Trust me."

"Tron, c'mon, I'm not newly rezzed, I just–" Ram craned his neck to bypass Tron's attempts to block him from the fallen program's line of sight, finally catching a glimpse. Whatever words of protest he'd started to form were stuck in his throat as horror bled into his features.

The program appeared to be shut down, which was probably a mercy. There were ugly friction marks scraped down one whole side of his armour, his circuits cracked and painfully red – not system-red, but damage-red. His arm had been ripped clean away just below the shoulder, probably caught beneath the bike as it skidded, and voxels were flaking off of the exposed structural pixels. His face was turned away, but Ram was sure he wasn't seeing all the damage. The sight alone would have been enough to make his processors glitch, even without seeing the colour of the damaged program's circuits.

_They were User-believer blue._

Tron sighed and grabbed Ram's shoulders, walking the stunned program back a few steps. "Ram. Ram. Ram, snap out of it. Come on, don't lock up on me."

Ram sucked in a breath he hadn't even realised he needed, grasping at Tron's forearms as panic welled in his logic circuits. "Users…Tron…Oh User, he's got blue circuits. He shouldn't have blue circuits, Tron! Why the frag does he have blue circuits?" His voice had risen to a hysterical shout. His cooling system was having a difficult time getting air. He felt lightheaded.

"RAM. You need to calm down. You're going to vapour-lock and shut down if you don't stop panicking. Breathe." Tron's commanding voice was a cool balm, splashing against his auditory sensors, and Ram took a couple deep gulps of air, feeling the dizzy sensation pass.

"Tron…crash it, Tron, he's one of _us_," he hissed, tightening his grip on Tron's forearms. "How long? How fragging long have they been pitting us against our own side? How many have we done this to?"

"Too long." Tron shook his head and released the actuary. "I suspected, but I didn't have proof until now." He looked apologetic. "I'm sorry."

A sudden rush of hot anger flooded Ram's system, circuits blazing as he stared up at his friend, fury at being left out of the loop etched on his face – and then it was gone just as quickly, leaving Ram shaky and exhausted. Of course Tron would've kept it secret, if it meant preserving Ram's peace of mind. He rubbed a hand over his face with a shuddering sigh.

Tron undocked his identity disk from his back and started back towards the downed program.

"Whoa, whoa, wait, what are you doing?" Ram jolted forward, grabbing his friend's arm. "You're not just gonna derezz him!"

Tron glared at Ram, the edge of his disk already alight. "It will be kinder than letting him suffer."

"I know, but–" Ram swallowed past the lump in his throat, hands trembling as he looked at the damaged conscript. "We should take him back. He shouldn't have to die here." He waved a hand at the empty game grid. Tron hesitated. "_Please_, Tron."

Tron frowned, looked past Ram at the approaching guards. With a sigh, he deactivated his disk and, in a move that startled Ram, handed it to the actuary. Then he knelt to curve his arms under the unconscious program's frame, lifting him easily to cradle against his chest.

Ram clutched Tron's disk with wide eyes. "What – why…"

"I can hardly defend myself with my arms full, Ram," Tron chastised simply, giving the actuary a steady look. "And I calculate the guards won't like what we're attempting to do." Ram gulped and tightened his grip on the disk, knuckles white. He nodded in understanding, not a little overwhelmed by the security program's trust in him.

As one, they turned to face the guards. Ram clutched Tron's disk, pushing a measure of power into it to activate the edge, and – after a moment's pause – reached back and undocked his own disk. He brought both up in a protective stance, the concentric rings blazing blue, and glared at the Reds.

"We're taking him," he said, sounding braver than he felt. "We'll come quietly, but we're not letting you have him."

The guards laughed and jeered, clearly not feeling at all threatened by the smaller program. Ram breathed in, out – _two disks weren't that difficult, it was just another set of calculations_ - and chucked his disk sharply. It ricocheted off the floor and narrowly missed clipping one guard's helmet. While they were distracted, he let Tron's disk fly; the edge seared a bright line of damage through another's armour, almost taking their arm off. His own disk arced back to him. He caught it, then Tron's, and glared fiercely.

"We're taking him," he repeated.

The guards weren't laughing anymore.

Ram shared a glance with Tron as they were flanked, and kept the disks in his hands active. But they were escorted back to the compound unimpeded and unchallenged, for once in complete silence.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

The force field deactivated, the gates opened, and Ram led the procession into the compound, feeling the weight of hundreds of eyes on him. Doubtless he was a sight to see; no trace of his usual smile, no joviality adorning his expression. His back was stiff, activated dual disks still clutched in his hands. He surveyed the room once, before he turned to find Tron, glaring at the guards who wisely remained on the outside of the compound as the security monitor stepped through with his passenger.

Ram didn't even register the force field snapping back into place. Tron was already striding across the compound towards the barracks.

Ram deactivated the disks, docked his own, and ran ahead of Tron to hold open the door, then made a line for his designated sleeping berth, dusting it off with a hand. He rarely used the berth; he preferred the open exercise space to the enclosed claustrophobia of the barracks. Today he'd never been more grateful for it.

"Here, Tron," he called, stepping back to allow the monitor to lay their injured comrade down on the padded bunk.

"Find out if anyone has skill as a medic," the monitor ordered. "We may as well make him comfortable."

Ram nodded and dashed back out, core processor whirring heavily in his chest. He was met at the door by several worried programs.

"What's going on, Ram? Who's that? What happened?"

"Not all at once!" Ram exclaimed, already fighting to stay calm. "First, does anyone in the compound have medical functions?"

"I think Soli does, I'll go find her," one of them piped up, and dashed off, quickly returning with a harried-looking female program with system repair markings and turquoise circuits. Ram breathed a sigh – one thing gone right, at least – and ushered her inside. Tron would explain things. He turned to face the crowd again, the questions starting up anew.

"It was a lightcycle crash," he tried to explain. "His bike spilled and derezzed without him."

"But you and Tron were the only ones on the game grid this microcycle!"

"He was–" Ram choked, pressing his fists against his mouth as though he could change the facts by refusing the words. "He was on the other team. He was a blue rider."

Silence, then a cacophony of noise as the others started talking over one another, demanding further data and throwing queries and pings in the actuary's direction until Ram couldn't take it. Tron's disk was lit in his hand and brandished defensively before he even realised what he was doing, forcing the others to step back or risk injury.

"Enough!" Tron's voice boomed from behind him, and a hand came to rest on Ram's shoulder. A ping of _/safenow-standdown_ passed through the contact. The actuary relaxed instantly, feeling dizzy, and let the power drain from the monitor's disk. Tron took it back gently and docked it on his back, then stepped forward.

"Why'd you bring back one of _them_?" someone shouted, and Tron glared.

"I'll pretend you didn't say that, because only a data-blind glitch could mistake blue circuits for red," he snarled.

"But Ram said he was on the MCP's side," another program said, confused.

"Ram said he was a blue rider. On the game grid, there is only blue and orange. There is no Master Control, no User-believers. It's only our perceptions that twist the sides into good and evil. The program's circuits are as blue as mine." Tron's expression was grim. "Today, I derezzed two riders without second thought. Now we may lose another, one of us, because of blind ignorance. The MCP has started pitting user-believers against each other, with us none the wiser if it hadn't been for the accident today."

Ram stifled a noise of denial in his throat, staring up at Tron wide-eyed. Many others were doing the same. Tron turned to Ram and laid a hand on his arm. "Come on." He shot a glare over his shoulder. "I would request privacy, and quiet. If you're going to gossip, do it elsewhere."

His stare brooked no arguments; the crowd dispersed quickly.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

Tron's hands were heavy on Ram's shoulders as he steered the actuary back into the quiet of the barracks.

Soli looked up from the bedside, and stood to greet them. "It's not good, I'm afraid," she said quietly. "I tried to patch up what I could; if I had proper energy supplies and a quarantine lock, I might've been able to do more. As it is, I could only patch the surface and bind the damage. Bringing him here was only a stopgap measure." The desolation in her gaze spoke volumes more than her words.

Ram barely heard her, his gaze fixed upon the program on his cot. The missing arm had been wrapped and bound and the worst of the flaring red cracks covered, but the program's circuits were glowing only half as strong as they should have been, flickering now and then from blue to red-gray. The actuary backed up and sank onto the cot behind him when the backs of his knees hit the frame, hugging his arms across his chest.

"Thank you," Tron said softly, escorting Soli out. A nanocycle later Ram felt the cot dip as Tron settled next to him.

"It never really hit me until now," Ram said quietly, staring straight ahead, his fingers clenching and unclenching the fabric of his armour's bodysuit. His voice felt tight, and it was a struggle to make his language subroutines form the words he wanted. "I knew…I knew that every time one of us was taken out, that there was a chance they wouldn't come back. I knew the others who played and lost and derezzed during team matches did it for their beliefs. But I…I still feel excited during a match. I still get that anticipation, that rush when I perform a tricky manoeuvre; that thrill when I come out the victor. I still have fun." His voice choked up, and he covered his mouth with his hands, his systems running hot as they fought to process the overload in his emotion subroutines. "How many did I kill, Tron? How many of us died at my hand because I was too involved to realise? How could the MCP be so sadistic?"

An arm wrapped around his shoulders, drawing Ram against the security program's side. "None of us realised," Tron spoke, his voice a soft rumble, soothing and low. "That was the MCP's game, to let us whittle ourselves away. We're all of us fighting for our lives, no matter the side we're on. None of it is your fault." The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently.

"He's dying because of me," Ram choked out, distressed, as he stared at the program, watching as circuits flickered, and red cracks spread just a little further across the damaged shell. "He's dying, and I don't even know his name."

"You can't let this get to you, Ram. It'll eat away at your logic circuits until you start looping and crash. Don't let him win."

"I don't know that I can," Ram managed to reply in a hoarse whisper.

On the bed, the nameless rider's circuits flickered red, gray, blue, red, red, and failed completely. With a soft whisper as the pixels lost cohesion and crumbled along the cracks, the conscript fell apart, a cloud shimmering dust left in his wake as his data was absorbed back into the system.

Ram felt a rush of heat overtake his system's processors, and his breath hitched; a strangled sob escaping as energy discharge collected in the corners of his eyes. With an anguished noise, he buried his face in Tron's chest, weeping uncontrollably, clinging desperately to the other program as tremors shook his frame. Tron's arms pulled him closer, holding him tight, feeding pings of _/sorrow-warmth-hush-safe-secure_ through the contact as softly murmured comforts went unheard but for the low timbre of the firewall's voice, a rumbling purr in Ram's auditory sensors.

It was the first time Ram had cried since the MCP had come to power, and he poured every emotion into it. For every lost friend, for every injustice wrought, and all the pent-up hatred of the guards that bullied and abused them; for every program who lost their conviction, for his own doubts and fears that he fought desperately to keep from crippling him; and most of all, for the nameless rider who had died on Ram's cot, his designation known only by the User whom he'd still held faith in.


	6. Chapter 6

Warnings: looots of violence, Ram goes slightly nuts, and some language.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

Ram's systems slowly booted up and he became aware of several facts. First, his head felt like it was stuffed with zip-padding, and his logic processors felt sluggish. Second, his face was mushed up against something warm and semi-soft that rose and fell in rhythmic fashion. His arms were loosely wrapped around someone's waist, and through a barely cracked eye he could make out the glow of blue circuit-light. Last, there was an ache between his shoulders centred over a few specific contact nodes. That wasn't to say the rest of him didn't ache, but that spot in particular felt more sensitive. Ram's temporary memory banks sent him a flash of fingers gently pressing in sequence and a slow slide into darkness, and he closed his eyes with a groggy groan.

"Fragger, can't believe you shut me down," he grumbled, though it came out more like '_Frgle, b'livu shu'dn._'

Tron didn't seem to have a problem translating. "I thought it best at the time. You needed the rest, and we were entering a downtime anyway." His friend's voice thrummed through Ram's auditory sensors, half-muffled through the ear pressed to the security monitor's chest. It was deep, soothing, washing over Ram's frazzled subroutines.

Ram groaned again and reluctantly pulled his head away, sitting up. He swayed in place for a moment, sniffing, wiping his hand across his cheeks. It came away damp, fingertips coated with glittering energy discharge that hadn't yet evaporated. More was still collecting in the corners of his eyes, despite his emotional outburst having tapered off. He let out a bitter huff of laughter, scrubbing harder at his face.

"Sorry for having a processor meltdown on you," he muttered, circuits dimming and tinting pink with embarrassment.

"I don't mind. It wasn't unexpected," Tron replied, giving Ram a steady gaze. "To be honest, I was surprised it hadn't occurred before now." Ram's circuits dimmed further and he ducked his head, staring at his fingers interlaced in his lap. "You've been storing all that up for a long time, haven't you?" A tiny nod. Tron sighed softly, and reached for the actuary. Ram allowed himself to be pulled unresistingly back into the monitor's arms, trembling quietly as he took solace in the embrace. His gaze flickered towards his empty cot, and a tear tracked its way down his cheek, soaking into Tron's circuits as he rested his head against the prominent squares.

"The MCP has to be stopped," he whispered with quiet intensity.

"He will be," his friend growled. "It's time we cease waiting and take the fight to him."

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

Easier said than done, Ram thought to himself later, watching Tron speak urgently with one program after another and feeling a bit superfluous just standing there. His systems were still a bit sluggish from his meltdown and forced reboot, so he'd opted to linger near the barracks, running the curved edge of his disk through his fingers.

Try as he might, Ram couldn't turn his thoughts from the nameless program. What had he thought, when he realised he was riding on the team normally designated for the MCP's goons? Had he panicked? Had he even realised that his opponents were fellow believers? Had he prayed to his User before the crash, desperate to stay alive? Had he been aware of what was happening afterwards?

Had he suffered by Ram's choice to bring him back here?

Ram could hear Tron's attempts to rally the others to revolution, but the security program, for all his inspiring orations, wasn't programmed to initiate a cascade systems failure. The others were angered and fearful over the revelation that the blue rider had been a User-believer, but none of them wanted to risk the chance of deresolution by being the first to raise their disk in revolt.

The actuary looked down at his hands, watching but not really seeing the disk that hung from his fingers. Some freedom-fighter he was. He'd begged for Tron's help, but aside from a few fancy tricks and a longer life sentence in the pit compound, he hadn't accomplished anything. The MCP was still in control, and Ram was still a mindless byte like the rest, penned up and waiting for the end of it all.

Ram clenched his hand, feeling the edge of his disk bite into his palm, and straightened up, disappearing back into the barracks.

Decision gate reached.

He found what he was looking for under his cot after a picocycle on his hands and knees, dragging out the empty storage container and marching back out into the compound. The sight of the little actuary striding with such purpose, carrying a box (of all things), was enough to draw attention from plenty of the conscripts. Even Tron did a double-take when he turned to see what had captured their interest.

Ram ignored them all, walking to the centre of the compound and setting the storage container open-side down. He paused, glanced between the corners of their prison, stuck a finger in his mouth and held it up, thumb out, squinting an eye shut as he judged the distances.

He then nudged the container a few micrometers to the left.

"Ram, what're you doing?" Tron looked more puzzled than concerned for his friend's unusual behaviour, but Ram merely looked up and gave him a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Hullo, Tron! Don't mind me, just doing a little math. Hang on – move back a bit, you're messing up my figures." He nudged the security monitor back gently and resumed his measurements, toeing the box into alignment with each new set of numbers.

Satisfied at last, he climbed up on the box. Tron's eyebrows tried to migrate up into his helmet.

"You may want to stand back a little," Ram said cheerfully as he undocked his disk.

The eyebrows came down in a concerned frown.

"Ram, I'm not sure you're functioning rationally right now; please explain what you're attempting to do."

"It's simple, Tron." He beamed down at Tron, taller than his friend for once. "I've been observing, like you were when you first got here. And you were right. We have been a bunch of weak, snivelling cowards."

He smiled, wide and unnatural, as he turned to gesture to the compound and the programs who had wandered closer to listen.

"We've just lain down like dead bits at the feet of the MCP's goons. Even those of us who wear blue proudly, who speak out in earnest for the Users, whose loyalties have never wavered; we have done pretty much nothing – _not one thing –"_ the sudden snarl made several of his nearer observers jump, "to directly fight back against this system takeover. It's all talk. All words. And words aren't enough; not here, not in this place."

His audience was growing, all of them staring, most wide-eyed. Some, who wore green in their circuits, looked guiltily down as he met their eyes. Even Tron was taken aback by this change in his friend's behaviour. Ram smiled, serene and brittle.

"The true believers aren't in this room, this cage, this prison." The actuary swept his disk out in an expansive gesture over the heads of the crowd. "The true believers are the ones who die, each and every microcycle, wearing blue to the last voxel. The true believers are the ones who fight, who refuse to kneel; who stand at the brink and refuse to back down."

He lowered his disk, shoulders slumping, and a hard light glinting in his eyes that troubled Tron, if the other program's expression was anything to go by. "Before Tron came here, I was in danger of losing that faith. It was a struggle; every microcycle, every hex, to remember that the Users count on us, that we are important to them. But even so, I realised I was still lying down. I was still no better than the ones who give up and take HIS colours."

He grinned mirthlessly, clenched his disk tightly, and it burst to life in a flare of brilliant blue, the outer edge digging into his unprotected palm. Tron made a noise of alarm as voxels began trickling through Ram's fingers, blue edges tinged damage-red. Ram ignored the sensation, still talking.

"You see, Tron, words are just words. And it's pretty obvious that words aren't doing enough against the MCP. What we really need is some action. And frankly, I'm sick of waiting for someone else to do it. So-" And he brightened up, almost buoyant as he spun his disk on his fingers. "Watch and be amazed, programs, as the astounding Ram-RK78206 does what no one else has ever attempted."

And with that, he turned, and let his disk fly.

There were shrieks from the crowd as it spun low over their heads, catching the invisible eddies of ambient static Ram had tested earlier, swooping up to spin outwards. Ram tracked it intently, waiting, pushing his will into the blur of light until it was an extension of his body, not just a weapon. The whirring disk slammed into one of the localised energy outputs, a glowing orb on top of each watchtower that flanked the compound gates and powered the force field. It was supposed to be impossible for the programs' disks to reach that far what with low power rations and limitations on their disk code. But Ram's disk still flew, arcing unnaturally to curve around and slam into the second without stopping.

Each orb cracked, sparking pixels and electric discharge, as they sputtered and went dark.

Picocycles later the force field flickered and died.

Ram reached up and caught his disk as it spun back to him. For a moment, all his circuits dimmed dangerously, and he wobbled, nearly falling off the box. Perhaps he'd put too much power into that little trick. Only Tron's hands on his hips steadied him. He grinned darkly at the astonished expressions around him. "Ladies and gentlemen, I…am escaping." And with that, he hopped off his box and sprinted for the open door.

At least, that was the plan. But the world went abruptly sideways when his feet hit the floor. Ram found himself listing badly and staggered into Tron's chest, clutching his head as he tried to reboot his spatial awareness. Sensors in his right palm were screaming at him, radiating pain from the injury he'd inflicted by accident. He hissed and clutched it with his good hand, clenching fingers around the gash that went through glove and shell to structural code. ~_Frag_.~ That was going to leave a mark, if it ever healed at all.

"Ram, you suicidal glitch-brained piece of outdated –" Tron swore, sputtering in shock and anger as he manhandled the actuary back on his feet and gave him a sharp, short shake. "Do you have any idea how reckless –"

"Less lecturing, more escaping," Ram interrupted, shoving his disk into Tron's hands with his good one and giving the firewall a weak grin. "I'm a hacker; I opened the door. It's your turn; show 'em what proper system security can do."

Tron looked as shocked as Ram had been back when the security program had trusted the actuary with his disk. Ram gripped his hand and smiled. "It's just another set of calculations."

Tron nodded, and pushed Ram to sit on the storage container. "I want you to stay back – at least," he added, as Ram began to protest, "Until you can stand up without falling over." He smirked, though worry was still central in his gaze. Ram rubbed his neck sheepishly, cradling his wounded hand to his chest, and pinged an /_acknowledged_ in response.

The monitor's eyes sharpened with determination as he turned to meet the guards that had begun pouring through the opening of the compound.

"If you need me, just follow the Reds' screams." The disks in his hands blazed to life, and Tron charged.

~_For the Users!~_ The tumultuous binary war cry rose up across the compound, echoed by the hundreds of other programs also spurred forth by the two programs' actions, and blue light surged up to crash against red as battle was engaged.

Ram was barely a nanocycle behind, despite his promise. The room was still off-kilter as he joined the fray, and his world became a chaotic jumble of data and input as he ducked and dodged his way through the scrum, diskless and just trying to keep all his pixels intact. One Red got past the main line of fighting; Ram barely dodged the swipe of his lightstaff, stumbling. He swung his good fist on reflex, catching the guard in the side of the head, and blinked in surprise as the Red went down hard and stayed down, processor knocked offline. Ram blinked and glanced at his hand, and ruthlessly suppressed a hysterical giggle. Without realising, he'd brought along the storage container he'd been standing on earlier.

He discarded it and grabbed the downed guard's identity disk right off his back, chucking it through the chest of another goon in crimson circuits. The disk, taken by force and only holding a limited amount of power, sailed a bit further before it deactivated and dropped harmlessly to the ground. Ram abandoned it; he didn't have the necessary functions to assimilate another's disk for his own long-term use without the proper permissions.

He caught a flash of familiar circuitry and headed for it. Tron and the other powerhouses of the game grids had pushed the guards back to the gate and out into the halls. The ground was littered with the pixelated remains of programs whose bodies hadn't been derezzed long enough to absorb back into the system's data matrix. Ram tried not to think about it, and pressed forward, searching. When he finally got a clear view of the bright blue pattern of Tron's armour lights, he almost locked up for a critical picocycle.

Tron was dangerous in an open space; in tight quarters and dual-wielding, he was downright deadly. With disks in hand flashing and rebounding off the multiple surfaces, he'd created a web of destruction that the Reds were hard pressed to avoid. There were a lot of them, though, and Tron's face was set in a grimace that spoke of flagging energy levels and function strain.

From a side corridor emerged a Red, aiming his disk with a direct line of sight to Tron's unguarded back. Ram couldn't think, just reacted. He ran forward, tackling the guard to the floor with an incoherent roar.

At the sound, Tron twisted on reflex, slicing through the throat of his opponent and using the turn to check his blind spot. He spotted Ram grappling with the Memory Guard and his eyes widened with worry, but he was forced to turn back and block the incoming disk thrown from a Red before he could say anything.

_/dodge-side!_ Ram pinged urgently, punching the guard he was wrestling with in the face and using the Red's own disk to derezz him. Tron ducked left; Ram flung the appropriated disk headlong down the corridor, scattering their attackers. Ram scrambled to his feet, outstretching his left hand to catch his disk as Tron tossed it back. The security program gave him a grim smile, clearly glad to see him despite being angry about his stunt. The smile vanished when he looked down the hall. Ram followed his gaze; Reds were pouring in from both sides, and they had been cut off from the rest of the riot.

"Oh – this is not good," the actuary muttered.

"Back to back!" Tron barked, and they moved in sync, each facing a corridor, disks at the ready.

As one, they let their disks fly.

The corridor became a seething cauldron of chaos as they fought, processors pushed to the limits and all functions active. But the Reds kept coming. Master Control had gained far more influence than Ram had expected. His energy levels were dangerously low as he did a swift calculation and bounced his disk off five angles to derezz three guards. Despite the situation, he couldn't help himself; as the disk snapped back into his hand, he shouted, "All hail the power of MATH, glitch-heads!"

"Ram!"

Tron's shout was one of warning and alarm. Ram turned: too slow; the lightstaff caught him across the stomach in a painful burst of electric shock, knocking his air intakes out of whack. The actuary gasped for breath, his knees slamming into the floor. A cry wrenched from his throat as the staff came down again across his shoulders, cracking armour circuits badly. One of the guards kicked his disk out of reach, shoving him roughly into the floor and wrenching his arms behind his back. A spasm of agony raced up his right arm, making him yell and lash out helplessly with a foot.

Out of sight, Tron yowled in fury, then pain. Ram's eyes flew open and he struggled, trying to crane his head to see. "Tron!"

The guards moved, and what Ram saw nearly shorted out his processors. Tron had been slammed up against the wall, snarling curses in binary as his arm was nearly twisted out of alignment. His disk and helmet were gone, though where or how wasn't clear, and his dark hair had fallen across his eyes, somehow accentuating the deadly glare he was casting his assailants. He was bleeding voxels from a gash in his arm, and most of his visible armour circuits had been cracked and bruised.

Ram struggled harder; he howled protests and rage as the guards cracked Tron across the head with a lightstaff. One of the Reds approached the security monitor holding some sort of device and clamped it around the program's wrists and disk. Tron instantly ceased struggling and sagged against the wall.

Ram's eyes widened in horror as he spotted another guard with a second restraint device. He immediately started thrashing. "No, no, no, NO, TRON! Tron!"

The restraints clicked shut around his wrists and he shuddered, feeling the code burrow into his core and shut down all but the most basic functions. He went limp, unable to fight back. As they hauled him to his feet, he locked eyes with Tron. The monitor's eyes were dulled by the restraint code, but there was something there that froze Ram to his core.

His own eyes widened in sudden terror as they started marching Tron off down the corridor. "Tron!" Oh Users, what were they doing? They weren't taking him back to the compound. "Tron! Where are you taking him?" Now the guards were pulling him off in the opposite direction. "No! Let me go, you glitching fraggers! Tron!" His cries grew desperate, frantic. "Tron!"

It had been the first time Ram saw true fear in his friend's eyes. He would never forget it for the rest of his life.


	7. Chapter 7

Warnings: graphic torture, language, and mentioned suicidal thoughts.

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

"I suppose you thought you were being very clever, program," Sark sneered from his position on the dais, looming over the decompiler.

The program strapped into its bindings huffed weakly, not even bothering to lift his head and give Sark the satisfaction of his full attention. He was too exhausted. In the wake of their failed rebellion, Ram had been certain he would be taken to the MCP himself, or derezzed immediately with great prejudice. Being brought to Sark, though, was in this moment the worse fate. He had no concept of how long he'd been under Sark's inquisition, but it felt like cycles.

Obviously, his silence wasn't what Command Program Sark wanted. The helmeted enforcer scowled and gestured to one of his null-unit enforcers. Immediately, a surge of electricity sizzled through the bindings. Ram's head slammed back against the rack, jaw clenched in agony as his circuits flickered crimson. Warnings and error messages flashed behind his eyelids, informing him of impending system failure.

He refused to scream. Screaming was what Sark wanted. And Ram was afraid that if he started screaming, he would never be able to stop.

"Did you actually think you could accomplish something, conscript? All your little rebellion achieved was the deresolution of your own allies. Sixty of your fellow believers: nothing more than dust and static. How does it feel, knowing you were the reason behind their deaths?"

"I dunno, Sark, how does it feel?" Ram rasped, tilting his head to fix a cocky stare on the Commander's blurry silhouette. Taunting him was a better proposition than letting himself dwell on things like casualty figures. "I think we gave as well as we got. How many of your guards did we derezz before you took us down, huh? How badly's the MCP gonna siphon your power cycles for that show of incompetence?"

Another surge of excruciating agony shocked through Ram's systems, tearing a gasp from his throat. He slumped in his bindings, panting heavily as it cut off.

"You insignificant _glitch_, you're _nothing_. You don't have the functions or skills to have pulled this off on your own. Tell me who helped you take out the generators. Was it Tron?"

"Go interface with a lightcycle baton."

"Tell me or I will derezz you pixel by pixel!"

~_FUCK you and the User who wrote your shoddy code. ~_ Oh, _that_ was interesting. He'd never tried that particular User insult before, but Sark's circuits blazed incandescent with outrage. He'd obviously hit a nerve. Ram had a moment to smirk before the next round of torture, and then his world shrunk to a pinprick of sensation and that sensation was _pain_.

"Strike a nerve there, did I Sark?" he gasped, trembling in his bonds. "Better watch out the MCP doesn't find out you're still a believer. You'd be in the trash bin faster than you could compute two-plus-two."

"I could take you apart down to your binary roots right now, you impudent calculator."

"So why don't you?" Ram shot back, laughing with code-deep weariness. "There's nothing stopping you."

Sark's circuits flared again, and his face contorted into a snarling rictus. For a moment, Ram was certain he would follow through, slam his hand down on the controls and erase Ram from existence. But then, perhaps more unsettlingly, Sark relaxed and smirked down at the actuary.

"I could. But I have a better torment for you, conscript. You will tell me what I want to know, and I will allow you a quick death. Keep resisting, and I will run you in the games without rest until you die."

As threats went, it wasn't a very good one. Ram felt sure his continued existence was probably the MCP's orders. He would be in the games no matter what he chose. "Is that what you did with Tron?"

Sark sneered. "Do you admit that he rendered assistance to you in formatting your failed rebellion?"

Ram glared. "I'm not admitting null-bits. Where's Tron?"

"Your loyalty to that waste of processing speed is admirable, but useless."

"Better him than the MCP."

"How did you bypass the restrictions on your disk?"

"How do you stay upright?"

The question seemed to throw Sark for a picocycle. Ram took the opening greedily. "Who needs a helmet that big, anyways? I mean, are you overcompensating for something? What's with the horns? And the v-line clusters? It's practically pointing out you haven't gotten a decent interface in EVER. Or are your preferences so data-blind they need directions?"

"Be silent!"

"There once was a program named Sark, who thought only of making his mark…" Ram choked off a howl of agony as a burst of electricity interrupted his recital. He giggled breathlessly as it passed, licking cracked lips as he croaked, "'I'll get a helmet,' he said, 'that's too big for my head…'" Another jolt and he felt the bitter, copper taste of used energy wash across his tongue as he bit it in his convulsions. He spat, the glowing liquid splashing across the floor, and grinned up at Sark. "Now his processor's always in the dark."

When he'd told that limerick to Tron, once, Tron had given him a half-amused, half-disturbed look and told him in no plainer words, "That's horrible, Ram."

Ram had shrugged and grinned, replying, "Eh, it sounds better in binary."

Sark was no more enthused about it than Tron had been, and grimaced in anger as he jabbed the controls again, flooding Ram's processors into system overload. The last thing Ram was aware of was the crackle of energy, before things went blissfully black.

After that, Sark made good on his promise to run Ram into the ground. Ram lost track of how many matches he fought, one after another, each victory barely escaping with his life. He fought guards and Basics, Reds and other believers until they all bled together. The only respite he was given was during downtime, when the whole system rested.

He never returned to the communal pit compound. Isolation, Sark had decreed, would prevent him and other radical dissidents from influencing the more malleable programs' wills. The first microcycle after the decompiler, he'd woken up alone, in a partition cell that was hardly big enough to stretch out in, his injuries crudely repaired and several more of his functions locked down.

It wasn't true isolation. The individual cells were completely enclosed on all sides, even the ceiling, but the walls were divided by transparent force fields that delivered a painful shock and temporary circuit burns if one happened to bump into them.

There was a new face waiting in one neighbouring cell or the other every time Ram returned exhausted and worn down. If he'd been more his old self, he probably would've been more friendly towards them. As it was, he tried his best to ignore them and their concern for his ragged state. The odds were too high that they would be the next face he saw across from him in Disk Wars or Jai Alai to allow him the risk of getting closer.

If he didn't know their names or designations, it made it easier.

Slowly, microcycle by microcycle, Sark was keeping his word. Ram was breaking. His circuits never wavered from blue – no, he had absolute faith in User-R_Kleinberg7, no matter what they did to him now – but his spirit was as cracked and brittle as his armour after the worst of micros.

When he returned to his cell the next downtime, he didn't even bother to look at his new neighbours before he collapsed on the shelf his jailers laughingly called a cot. With his disk hanging limply from outstretched fingers, he tucked his legs up to his chest and buried his face in his knees, exhaling a ragged sigh.

"Ram!"

Ram's head shot up at the astonished, profoundly relieved exclamation. He had to blink several times, because it looked like Tron was staring at him through the force field of the cell to his right. He shook his head, knocked his temple with a fist in case some visual sensor had glitched and was feeding him data ghosts, and looked again.

Tron was still there, smiling wider than Ram had ever seen, and something tight clenched in Ram's chest. The actuary uncoiled from the cot and managed to stagger over to the wall, leaning heavily on the support strut as he visibly trembled, aching to reach out and touch, to make sure Tron was really there.

"Users, TRON. They told me they derezzed you; delete it, I thought you were dead, what did they do to you, how are you - why are you - Tron, geez, Users' will, I thought you-"

"Reports of my deresolution are highly inaccurate," Tron replied. "I was a guest of the MCP for a while, but it turns out he'd rather break me in the games than derezz me. A quick death would be too good for me, apparently."

Ram laughed, shakily, and sank to the floor, covering his mouth with his hands as his giggles turned desperate. His self-control was already seriously fragile, and the giggles became hitching, half-sobbed gasps as he fought to keep from turning hysterical. Tron sank down to the floor beside him, deeply concerned.

"Frag, Tron, I thought you were dead. They took you away and then Sark got his slimy claws in me and I swear, I have never wanted to sink my disk into someone and feel more pleasure doing it, and all I could think of was that _stupid_ limerick–"

"The one about Sark's helmet? You actually recited that piece of trash?"

Ram nodded, hiccupping. "Yeah. And man, was he ever glitched about it. I also told him to…to go interface with a lightcycle baton."

That earned him a laugh from Tron, but Ram was still shaking, pressing his fists against his mouth. "They wanted me to tell them how I took out the generators. They thought I couldn't have acted alone; they wanted names. But I didn't give anyone up."

"And don't think I won't be chewing you out for that stunt later, you redacted malware. What were you thinking, throwing that much power into your disk? I was afraid you'd derezz right in my arms."

Ram giggled helplessly until his voice broke and became a sob. "I'm sorry Tron. I don't know what I was thinking, I just…I had to do something. Just wish I'd done it sooner. The MCP might not have been able to stop us if I had."

"No, no, don't. It was a good plan. I should've guessed you'd be the perfect program for the job; you're hard-wired to talk people into taking the right steps to secure their own futures." Tron sounded proud for a moment before his tone darkened. "We just didn't have all the variables."

Variables such as the numbers of the MCP's forces, numbers that were disturbing to both of them. Ram made a quiet, hopeless noise and hugged his arms around himself. Tron pressed a hand to the wall between them, encouraging, "we'll find some other way to get out of here, Ram, I promise. We just have to wait for the right opportunity."

Ram shuddered, leaning his head against the support column, and his tone shifted into quiet desperation. "Tron, I don't think I can take much more of this."

It earned him a look of alarm from the other program, but he could only stare at the far wall of his cell. "Every time I step out of a game and come back to this cell, the idea of putting my own disk through my chest seems like a better idea than going back out, not knowing what I'll face. Not knowing whether it'll be one of them, or one of us. I'm not as good as you; I only win by the space of a nanosecond, and then I come back and there's a new face in the cell next to mine that I just know I'll see in the arena the next microcycle. It's killing me, faster than any instant derezz. I can't…I just…I'm sorry." He buried his face in his arms, not wanting to see the desolation on his companion's features at his admission.

~_Do you really believe the Users are still there?~_

The question startled Ram, especially the formal binary it came in. He looked up to meet Tron's gaze, confused and sad. "What? Of course, I – I still believe – I haven't changed my circuits…"

_/irrelevant_ Tron pinged, looking frustrated. ~_Do you really believe the Users are still there?~_ There was an odd urgency in his tone.

~_Yes,~_ Ram returned firmly, frowning.

~_Tell me about them._~

Ram's eyes widened at the request. This felt like Tron was asking for more than just the silly tales they had traded in the compound. He stared at Tron, searching the other's face for some sign of corruption or glitching. There was none; Tron stared back, patient and waiting.

Ram licked his lips. ~_The Users…the Users, Alan-One and R_Kleinberg7, had found the location of the MCP's server. But their plan was in jeopardy, for the MCP had employed other Users to guard him. Fortunately, Alan-One and R_Kleinberg7 were smarter than the guards. They only needed to wait for downtime, when it would be easy to slip by unnoticed…_~

Ram spoke, his voice hoarse and shaking, long into the downtime, crafting tales of their Users as Tron listened. Every so often, Tron would take up the dialogue, when Ram's voice gave out and he could not stop the tremors of his taxed systems. Ram would lean against the wall, listening to Tron's smooth timbre and quietly accepting the emotion-zip pings of /_comfort-warmth-safety-calm_, until he could relax enough to stop shaking and take up the story again.

It was the first time, and would not be the last, that they did this. As each microcycle passed and each downtime found Ram and Tron still alive and together, the question became routine. They would ask it to seek comfort from the other; to draw each-other out of depression when the cycles became too harsh. It was a way to cope with their situation that kept their spirits strong.

Despite this, however, Ram still distanced himself from the other programs that made the rounds in the empty cell next to his. From his favoured spot sitting against the support column next to the barrier between his and Tron's rooms, he would watch in silence, observing the new conscripts as they rallied, wept, shouted curses at their jailers. Then there were those who lingered in the middle of the cell, dazed and confused, unable to calculate the simple facts that they were prisoners now, and no longer able to perform their functions and duties.

Ram would watch, and wonder if he'd seen them before; if they would be his next opponent. His next victim.

He let his disk spin idly from his hands as the latest conscript was forced in. The newcomer had a novice tunic on over his armour – more and more of them did – and was somewhat out of shape, with a fearful expression. The odds of him surviving long enough to shed that tunic, Ram realised, were extremely low.

Unbidden, his mind wandered to an old memory file: the nameless program from the lightcycle grid, hexes of millicycles long gone. He'd forever regret not learning his designation before he de-resolved.

Maybe he owed it to his memory to make sure that didn't happen again.

"I'd say 'welcome,' friend, but not here. Not like this."

**Ooo-oOo-ooO**

_**Continues in Systems Check, coming soon.**_


End file.
